Having first appeared at the Whitechapel Gallery as part of the British Council's 75th Anniversary celebrations, a re-named version of the Passports exhibition was recently shown at the Padiglione D'Arte Contemporanea (PAC) in Milan, Italy.

Passports is curated by artist Michael Craig-Martin and focuses on the Collection’s great strengths – buying from artists at early stages in their careers and showing works of art internationally. The exhibition provides the price paid for each and a ‘passport’ of where they have been shown across the world, providing a unique insight into the Collection’s international purpose.

The exhibition of British 20th and 21st century art includes Lucian Freud’s early masterpiece, Girl with Roses (1947 -8), a psychologically charged portrait of the artist’s first wife Kitty. The work has travelled to more than 25 countries and featured in over 80 exhibitions since it was acquired for £157 in 1948. A rare early carving in Cumberland alabaster by Henry Moore called Girl with Clasped Hands (1930) is shown next to Bridget Riley’s first major painting in colour, Cataract 3 (1967). Peter Doig’s Hill Houses, 1990 - 91 was bought by the British Council after he won the Whitechapel Artists’ Award in 1991 at the very beginning of his career. The exhibition also includes key works by David Hockney, Gilbert & George, Paul Nash and Ben Nicholson, as well as later works by artists such as Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili and Sarah Lucas.

Find out more about the Passports exhibition on the British Council Collection website

Watch the guided tour of 'Passports - Great Early Buys from the British Council Collection' by Andrea Rose, Director Visual Arts on the British Council Collection website.

The British Council Collection spans the 20th Century and includes works by early modern masters such Stanley Spencer, Wyndham Lewis, Paul Nash and Walter Sickert, Barbara Hepworth, Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson. Post-war it includes, among others, artists from the School of London; painters from St Ives and from the Kitchen Sink groups; exponents of the New Generation in the 1960s; conceptual and experimental artists such as Gilbert & George and Richard Long; the New British Sculptors of the 1980s, including Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor. Tracey Emin, Gary Hume, Damien Hirst, Mark Wallinger and Sarah Lucas are among the YBA generation represented and artists including Jeremy Deller, Douglas Gordon, Tomma Abts and Roger Hiorns bring the Collection up to the present day.

Passports: Great Early Buys from the British Council Collection ran at the Whitechapel Gallery from 5 April – 14 June 2009. Following on throughout 2009 and early 2010 three further exhibitions, curated by Tim Marlow, Paula Rego, Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane, will be shown at the Whitechapel Gallery. The fifth and final exhibition will be the result of an international competition, which the British Council and the Whitechapel Gallery are organising to provide an opportunity for aspiring curators worldwide - you can find out more about the Fifth Curator competition here.

Image left: David Hockney, Man in a Museum (or You are in the Wrong Movie), 1962.
British Council Collection. © David Hockney.